


The Mess I Made

by insufficientemotionalfunds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, I just felt super angsty, M/M, that's about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insufficientemotionalfunds/pseuds/insufficientemotionalfunds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>...Should've kissed you there. I should've held your face. I should've watched those eyes... instead of run in place. I should've called you out, I should've said your name. I should've turned around. I should've looked again...</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But oh, I'm staring at the mess I made....<br/>I 'm staring at the mess I made.<br/>I 'm staring at the mess I made.<br/>As you turn, you take your heart and walk away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mess I Made

**Author's Note:**

> So, Cas' endless patience with Dean has always fascinated me. Like, seriously, how long can you wait for someone?

Dean Winchester knew intimately the power of words; spells and incantations and prophecies... quiet words spoken in disappointment, words screamed in anger between brothers, the last words of dying fathers... Latin, Enochian, Sandscrit... written, spoken, even just thought.... Yes, Dean knew the power of words... especially their propensity to open up whole new worlds of hurt.

But these. These two common words, individually so very unassuming... now strung together in a voice with so much hold over him already and suddenly they had the power to send him to his knees. He wasn't ready for this.  
  
"I'm leaving."  
  
He felt the shiver rip its way up from the base of his spine, but he steeled himself as he turned. Maybe it wasn't _"I'm_ leaving _..."_ (after all he, understandably, hadn't quite yet caught on to all the tiny little nuances of speech and word choice and how _final_ some things could sound if you said them right) maybe it was _"I'm going to the store,"_ or _"I'm heading out for a walk."_ Because it couldn't be _"I'm leaving_ you." Not him. Not ever. Not... _really._  
  
And yet, there Castiel stood, hesitating on the bottom step leading up into the library, duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a look of stern resolve hardening his eyes and pursing his lips.  
  
Dean's throat clicked drily as he swallowed down all the words bubbling up— _"How long?" "Where we headed?"_ and _"Please don't, not again, please,"_ and somehow wound up with, "Huh?"  
  
Castiel shuffled awkwardly for a second before that hard resolve visibly kicked back in and he drew himself up. "You heard me."  
  
"I did," Dean confirmed weakly, jerking an aborted half step toward him, "But I'm not sure where you're goin' with it. I mean, look at you—"  
  
He did as instructed, glancing down over the faded Henley and ratty second-hand hoodie, the threadbare jeans rolled up over scuffed boots... things that had slowly been disappearing from the bathroom and the wash and probably straight out of Dean's closet, before meeting Dean's gaze again. "What are you trying to say, Dean?" he asked, voice hitching on a tired sigh.  
  
"I—" _don't know._ He mouthed dumbly, eyes darting helplessly up and down Castiel's stiff form in the warm light streaming through the archway. He didn't know... but he _had_ to be worried, right...? That's what this roiling horror and desperation in his stomach was, because Cas... Cas wasn't ready for the world, right? (The world wasn't ready for Cas.) Cas had only been fully human for a few months, not counting that horrible first time _("You can't stay.")_ and no way was he ready to claw his way up the Hobbit hole into the real world— (except for he was. He'd proven the first go 'round that he could feed and clothe and take care of himself and get a job and live and function _without Dean_ ). Except maybe this wasn't about _Cas_ , maybe it was about _Dean_ and how _he_ couldn't function without his angel perched on his shoulder. And so finally what burst past his lips in a pathetic hitch was, _"Why?"_  
  
He wasn't expecting the explosion of emotion this set off in Castiel's eyes— a fireworks display of disbelief and hurt and rage that fizzled quickly back into the dull mask of indifference he was hiding himself behind. Nor was he expecting the answer:  
  
"Because you kissed me."  
  
Everything screeched to a halt. Dean could feel the very Earth braking under his feet and he almost stumbled at the jolt of it, one hand reaching blindly to latch onto the chair back at his side.  
  
Castiel grit his jaw, voice wavering for the first time as he continued, "Because you kissed me when we were drunk... that first night back after—" He cleared his throat and looked away, still unable to put into words the complete and utter disaster that had led them both on the long road back to their humanity, siphoning black ink from Dean's eyes in time with the blinding grace draining from Castiel's. He spoke instead to the marble floor, like telling it his story might make it hurt a bit less. "You commiserated and drank to humanity with me... watched... waited until I was so drunk I could barely see straight... and then—"  
  
Dean didn't need to be told. He remembered it like it was an hour ago; remembered the warmth of alcohol-flushed cheeks and the scratch of stubble against his palms, the tiny hiccup of surprise when he missed the first time and planted one against the side of Cas' nose and how the rest of the air whooshed out of him when Dean finally found his lips; he remembered how they melted together in a heap at the foot of the bed Cas had chosen—his drunken certainty that Cas would never have to actually sleep in it because he had half a memory-foam mattress waiting for him across the hall and that was _so much better_ —and how Cas had spilled into his lap with a breathy laugh, all grabby hands and a needy mouth; he remembered kissing him slow and deep, lazy with the knowledge that he had all the time in the world to take his time and just _learn_ him... before Cas had kind of just collapsed onto him and passed out with his face mashed into Dean's neck. So Dean had gently picked him up and tucked him into bed and then climbed right in after him, even with the full knowledge that he was going to be aching all over without his memory-foam in the morning.  
  
And worse, he remembered waking up that morning in a tangle of Cas... warm and love drunk and perfect, a moment of calm that he should've known could never last in the shitstorm of his life— and then Sam was in the doorway quirking a disapproving brow at the multitude of bottles scattered across the floor and _scowling_ at Dean over the curve of Castiel's shoulder, disappointed enough for both him _and_ their dead father combined. He remembered shattering under the weight of that disappointment, and when Sam had turned and walked away without a word, the majority of Dean's pieces had clamored after him because if he had to choose—

Fuck it all, if he had to choose between Cas and _Sam—_  
  
Castiel's voice cracked softly as Dean's fingers balled into fists. "You looked me in the eye, held my face in your hands, and kissed me like you loved me." The tiny screech of rubber sole on marble yanked Dean's head up to watch as Castiel jerked up the step and gestured furiously at him. "And you're _pretending_ to not remember and praying to an absent God that _I_ don't remember... that I was too drunk and new... so you wouldn't have to face up to it." His throat worked furiously, his eyes shining for all the wrong reasons. "But I _do_. I remember it all." He paused, looking at Dean with that desperation that could only come from knowing that Dean couldn't— _wouldn't_ —deliver.  
  
"I've been waiting," he finally continued quietly, after a long, pregnant silence. "I've given you time... space... to figure it all out.... And— and now I know that... if it was a _lie_... if it was just drunken fooling around, it would hurt. It would hurt terribly, but if it was _true...."_  
  
(True?) Dean's brow furrowed in confusion. _  
  
_"If you were being true and now you've decided that I'm— that _we're_ not worth it...." Castiel's breath was coming sharp and fast, and Dean wanted to go to him so bad the tendons in his thighs were burning with it, but something that felt too much like the weight of his father's hand on his shoulder was holding him back.  "And I...." Cas swallowed, eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at Dean's socked feet. "I, who have moved Heaven and Earth for you... I, who have killed and fought and died for you _because I love you...."_  
  
There was a ringing in Dean's ears; the room was too bright and Castiel's eyes were too goddamn blue as they rose to meet his own.  
  
"I _can't,"_ Castiel said quietly, firmly, as though reassuring himself. "I can't wait anymore. I can't sit here and hope for something you never intend to give... sustaining on tiny handouts of affection, like scraps tossed to a stray, that you can only find at the bottom of a bottle. I deserve more. _You_ deserve more. But if you can't— _won't_ take it... then I need to leave. Because this is killing me, Dean. I love you. But I can't stay."  
  
He looked at Dean for a long moment, searching his face without the depth of angelic sight and found—  
  
He sighed, shoulders slumping heavily as he turned slowly on his heel. "Goodbye, Dean."  
  
Dean felt trapped in his own skin, screaming and clamoring to break out of his cage and chase Castiel down— wrestle him to the ground and reassure him that whatever he'd been hearing that night... whatever he thought Dean might have been telling him was the absolute truth. But all he could do was rasp out, _"Cas."_  
  
Castiel stilled, halfway across the room to the stairs leading up and out of Dean's world, and glanced over his shoulder with the barest embers of hope sparking in his eyes.  
  
"Cas, I—" Dean wet his lips frantically, tongue too heavy under the weight of Castiel's truth. "I _need you."_  
  
It fell short. It snuffed out the spark, and Castiel's eyes were cold as the freezing ocean depths when he turned without a word and ascended the steps.  
  
Dean stood welded to the floor as the door clanged shut behind him, staring at the empty landing and waiting for whatever had always brought his wayward angel back to him to kick in... like it always did... like it always _would_....

 _Please_. _Please, don't. Not again. Please._  
  
He had no idea how long he'd been standing there by the time Sam came wandering up from the depths of the archives, coated in a fine layer of dust and carefully cataloging his latest discovery in his little handwritten index.  
  
His brother stopped short, and Dean could feel the uncertainty in his gaze as it seared across his back. "Dean?" he asked gently.  
  
"Sammy." The expulsion of air left him hollow and ragged, like something deep in his chest had been ripped out. "He's gone."

**Author's Note:**

> Did a little editing 'cause I guess I intend to write part two....
> 
> More drabbles 'n' stuff on [my tumblr](http://insufficientemotionalfunds.tumblr.com)


End file.
